Almost $80 million in grants for stem cell research and related technologies has flowed to the Sacramento region since voters approved a ballot measure in 2004 to jump start the industry with $3 billion in state bond financing.

So far $1.4 billion has been awarded statewide by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine — and more is coming. Up to $240 million in new disease-specific grants will be announced July 26.

Researchers at the University of California Davis, which already has received the lion’s share of local CIRM stem-cell funding, hope to nab an additional $54 million.

Eight years after voters approved the bond measure, the economic impact of the program is showing signs that it will be far greater than the sum of the grants so far. Efforts to leverage grant funding to attract additional support are expected to generate thousands of jobs and millions in tax revenue to the state and counties.

Buzz about the program has boosted private-sector research, too, although it pales in comparison to what universities have gotten.

“Most of the growth in jobs will come later, after the platform gets developed, grooved and starts to materialize,” said Cary Adams, who chairs MedStart, an initiative by the Sacramento Area Regional Technology Alliance to support the growing bioscience industry in the area. “It’s all groundwork for future economic growth.”

An independent economic impact study, soon to be released, concludes the $1.6 billion in grants awarded through July 26 — and the $1.3 billion recipients were able to raise from donors and institutions because of the funding — will create the equivalent of 38,628 full-time jobs through 2014. And the funding is expected to generate payments of $208.6 million in tax revenue to the state of California, $82.6 million to local governments and $538.8 million to the federal government over the same period.

Much of the early financing went toward buildings and infrastructure to support research.

UC Davis landed a $20 million grant to support its $62 million Institute for Regenerative Cures on the health system campus in Sacramento. When ground was broken in 2008, the first economic ripple felt in the region was a surge of construction jobs. Then came technicians, administrative personnel and others. Now, the center also houses more than 150 faculty dedicated to stem-cell research.

Developing new therapies

The focus of the statewide program is changing, though.

A five-year strategic plan adopted in May by the San Francisco-based California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, which oversees the bond financing program, shrinks support for basic research, facilities and training — and funnels more of its funds toward development of new therapies.

The agency aims to fund at least 10 therapies in early clinical trials and see at least 20 of its programs get outside capital for further development.

“Where do we put the money now to get the most bang for the buck?” asked agency spokesman Kevin McCormack. UC Davis is ahead of the game, he said, because it has established a good manufacturing practice lab to serve local researchers — and others who want to run clinical trials on new therapies.

“It’s a really good facility,” McCormack said “There’s nothing else comparable. When something really promising comes along, this may be the place to manufacture it. From a business perspective, they’ve been really smart.”

The state stem cell program is not without controversy, however.

The voter initiative was put on the ballot at a time when use of embryonic stem cells was under fire by the Bush administration. The initial focus was on building laboratories and clean rooms that can handle embryonic stem cells; only later did the program shift to eye therapies that are more likely to move quickly from research to the bedside, said Phil Coehlo, CEO of the Sacramento-based startup SynGen Inc. The company is developing medical devices that isolate and capture nonembryonic stem cells for research.

“It poured too much money into infrastructure, so little companies like us would get nothing,” Coehlo said. “Hopefully, the focus on where patients can be helped in the near term will mean adult stem cells will get a lot more money in the future.”

Boosting the fight against HIV

UC Davis has received the largest share of local CIRM stem-cell funding so far, with grants that total $73.3 million.

“It’s been huge for us,” said Jan Nolta, director of the university stem cell program and UC Davis Institute for Regenerative Cures. Boosted by funding from other sources, including a $20 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, UC Davis is moving toward clinical trials on a variety of fronts.

There are six stem cell therapies in clinical trials now, with 16 more in the pipeline, Nolta said. She has six patents and all the primary investigators on campus “have a few,” Nolta said.

The 7,000-square-foot manufacturing practice facility includes a suite of six specially designed “clean” rooms that enable researchers to safely process cellular and gene therapies for clinical trials. The facility has contracts with other universities and private industry that allow others to use the space.

Stem cell studies under way target more than a dozen diseases ranging from hearing loss to heart, lung and kidney disease.

For example, a UC Davis team made waves in May with news of a novel stem cell therapy that shows promise in the fight against HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. The technique — tested in mice — involves replacing the immune system with stem cells engineered with a combination of HIV-resistant genes capable of replicating a normally functioning human immune system.

Collaboration between researchers at the UC Davis Institute for Regenerative Cures in Sacramento and two entities on the UC Davis campus — the School of Veterinary Medicine and California National Primate Center — boosts the kind of research that can be done overall. Pilot studies in animals can rapidly test a medical premise before research moves to clinical trials with humans, said Dori Borjesson, an associate professor at the vet school.

Researchers make biologic products with dog or horse blood by taking stem cells from animal fat or bone marrow, growing them and re-injecting the product back into the animal for treatment, Borjesson said. The process helps researchers understand how the treatment works and what dose to give before experimentation on human subjects.

Mouse models

The Jackson Laboratory, an independent, nonprofit biomedical research institution based in Bar Harbor, Maine, has received more than $3.8 million in CIRM funding for its facility in West Sacramento. The lab has about 165 employees.

Better known as JAX, the nonprofit has a collaborative relationship with UC Davis but won this grant for its own, independent work to discover the genetic basis for preventing, treating and curing human diseases — and to supply thousands of strains of genetically defined mice for other research institutions worldwide.

One of the projects uses an immune system-compromised mouse particularly amenable to transplanted genes and tissues, said Leon Hall, director of scientific operations for JAX-West. These mice are used to test new stem cell therapies to treat Parkinson’s disease. The CIRM grant has funded this work by seven West Sacramento researchers for three years, Hall said.

The lab is hiring and expects to hire about 10 new researchers as it brings more mouse production rooms on line.

“We would not have been able to invest in development of these models without the CIRM grant,” Hall said, adding that the model already has been leveraged to support other research.

The third local player with a CIRM grant is California State University Sacramento, which has received almost $2.8 million.

The money has established a master’s degree program that offers 10 students trained to work in the stem cell field and manage laboratories with an opportunity for hands-on experience in Nolta’s lab at UC Davis. A Sac State alum, she sees the program as a bridge from classroom to research bench.

“It’s very cool,” associate dean Jane Bruner said. “It allows us to offer a master’s program for our students we would never have been able to otherwise.”

Students who have completed the program so far have been successful in getting a job in stem cell research or have gone on to get more education, Bruner said.

The promise of $3 billion stem cell research funding has created a buzz beyond the programs funded.

A Placerville company called StemExpress hasn’t applied for CIRM funding yet, but plans to do so in the future, said Joshua Wood, vice president of clinical operations. The company provides human blood, tissue products, primary cells and clinical specimens to biomedical researchers. Sales have increased in recent years, and the company has hired at least 24 people.

“CIRM has had no immediate impact on us, but obviously, it’s strengthened stem cell resources and established California as a hot bed for stem cell research,” Wood said.